Lehigh Football Nation

 We are now officially midway through the 2023 Lehigh football season.  The Mountain Hawks sit at 1-5 overall, and 0-1 in the Patriot League. I thought I'd go ahead and make up some midseason grades, and set some "fan goals" for the second half. The 2023 Mountain Hawks were picked to finish fifth in the seven team Patriot League.  In order to meet or exceed that expectation, they'll probably have to go at least 3-2 the rest of the way in conference play.  Their remaining games are vs. Georgetown, at Bucknell, vs. Holy Cross, at Colgate, and vs. Lafayette in The Rivalry. Can they do it? Culture Changing: B+ .  I was there in the Bronx last week after the tough 38-35 defeat to Fordham, and there wasn't a single player emerging from the locker room that looked like they didn't care.  Every face was glum.  They didn't even seem sad.  More frustrated and angry. That may seem normal, considering the agonizing way the Mountain Hawks lost, but it was a ma...

  One of my guilty pleasures last fall during the Lehigh football season was watching the FX show "Welcome to Wrexham".  It was a surprising balm on a tough 2-9 year. It only came about - surprisingly - at the insistence of my wife. She had just returned from jury duty in Philadelphia, and one of the people she chatted with recommended the show.  She was excited to see it.  For my part, I thought, sure, a show about sports and English soccer?  Sign me up.   The story of how two Hollywood stars bout a Welsh soccer team is interesting.  During the pandemic, the British actor Humphrey Ker suggested to actor Rob McElhenny (creator, writer and star of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) watch the excellent sports docuseries “Sunderland ’Til I Die,” which documented the doomed task of Sunderland and their fans as they tried to bring their club back up to the Premier League alongside international brands Manchester City, Liverpool, and Manchester Un...

We didn't want to be here, but we're here now once again.  Lehigh fans have entered this offseason wondering who might be on the Lehigh Athletic Department's shortlist for the next head football coach of the Lehigh Mountain Hawks. I do not know who has applied, or who is under active consideration for the position.  However as the biggest Lehigh football follower you know, I have some ideas, ideas I am sharing with you now.  (For free!) I've come up with a list of fifteen possible names, some which I've heard whispered as candidates, others which might be good fits at Lehigh for a variety of reasons.  What all of these candidates have in common is that any one of them would be tremendous candidates to be Lehigh's next head football coach. Let's get to it. UPDATE: Four more names. John Allen Current Position : Wide Receivers Coach/Passing Game Coordinator, UConn (2022-present) Resume : Allen, with a long list of qualifications, is well known, as his UConn...

  I really wanted the Tom Gilmore Era to work. I did not first meet Tom Gilmore when he was a fiery defensive coordinator for some of the best Lehigh teams in history, but I thoroughly enjoyed what he created.   His defense was the final piece of the puzzle in 2001 when the Mountain Hawks earned a first round game in the I-AA Playoffs, a 27-24 win over Hofstra that was one of one of my favorite all-time non-Lafayette wins in program history.   In that game, Lehigh fell behind 14-0 and lost their starting QB, but his defense, led by guys like LB Tom McGeoy, held them to 10 points the rest of the way and ended up winning the game in overtime - where, fittingly, the Mountain Hawks prevented the Pride from scoring. I did later meet Tom Gilmore in person after a rainy afternoon at Murray Goodman Stadium in 2005.  By then, he had taken over a program profoundly in trouble, the Holy Cross Crusaders, and he was in his second year at the helm. When he took over at H...

Bryce Harper took control of the city of Philadelphia on a 1-2 pitch. He fouled off two 99 mph fastballs, took a changeup just low, and then crushed Daniel Suarez's 98.9 mph sinker into the left-center stands. At that moment, so many people in the Philadelphia area erupted that it felt like it registered on the Richter scale.   Citizens Bank Park, filled with many fans who just two months ago might have been cursing the organization for being stuck in third and very possibly falling out of contention, were jumping around, waving their Red October towels, in the midst of a wild party they will never forget. For Phillies fans and Philly fans, it was a moment they had been waiting for after an eleven year playoff drought.  For my wife, who listened to the radio call on WIP on our way out to dinner, it was a goosebump-inducing experience. It's probably not accurate to call Philly fans "long suffering" (ask any Mariners fan), but in a lot of ways in this case it's not ...